AN: Okay, here's the next chapter, and I have a few things to say. First off, for those who want to know about my other fic, I already have a rough draft for the next chapter of it, but it's in need of serious work. Hopefully, it should be out this month, but don't be surprised if it's not. Second, I've somehow ended up on the Prince's Trust twelve week course thing, so my time is going to be limited (especially as I have a residential trip for a week in a fortnight), so there's that too. Third, I have a new beta reader, let's all wish him luck! Please enjoy the story.
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 20 – Grimmauld Place
Harry leaned forwards, not quite believing what he was seeing. Having decided to 'scout out' Gringotts on the Astral Plane, he and his reapers had gone to London and shifted to the Astral Plane. Not wanting to be too close to Diagon Alley when he did so, he'd been standing on the roof of Big Ben when he'd shifted. Something that was quite fortunate in hindsight.
"What... What is that?" Harry murmured, eyes wide as he gaped at what existed where he knew Diagon Alley was in the Material World.
"A high level Astral Spirit by the look of it, maybe high fifth Class or low sixth." One of the reapers commented. "It looks like a sessile-type to me, and that's both good and bad."
"How do you even know that word?" Harry muttered to himself, though he knew what she meant by a 'sessile-type' despite it not being a commonly used word. A sessile, or stationary, animal is one that spent its life anchored in one place, like barnacles, mussels, or limpets.
The Astral Spirit Harry could see appeared to qualify as well. There was a massive sink hole, roughly a mile across, and coming out of that hole were massive, thick tentacles, apparently all originating from a single spirit that resided in those dark depths.
He sighed. "Well, it looks like we can't use the Astral Plane to infiltrate Gringotts, I don't want to go anywhere near that thing." Harry shuddered, remembering how much trouble he'd had with a 'mere' Class three revenant. He did not want to tangle with something that was two, or possibly three, levels higher than that!
"Scared, master?" The female reaper asked, amusement lacing her double-toned voice.
"Yes, I am." Harry replied bluntly. "I can't beat a Class three spirit, what hope do I have against a Class five, or worse a Class six spirit? Even with the 'Glyphs' you're teaching me to use, I'm far from being a competent fighter, at least in regards to Astral Spirits."
'Glyphs' being what his female reaper was teaching him. She only knew six though; 'Shift', 'Force', 'Stone', 'Stun', 'Water', 'Fire', and 'Purify'.
Shift created a portal that allowed one to instantly switch between the Astral and Material Planes, and Harry was attempting to combine it with a high speed movement spell to create a sort of short range 'teleport' ability. Force was exactly that, a blast of directed motion, useful for knocking things back, pushing them aside, or pulling them towards you. Stone could be used to temporarily petrify others around the caster.
Stun did exactly as it suggested, though it could also cause disorientation. Water, despite the name, acted more like acid rain that ate away at those it fell on, and could be used on the Astral Plane despite water having about as much presence as air there.
Fire caused several expanding rings of blazing power to erupt around Harry, burning away at anything that was caught within his range. Purify was harmless to everything except Astral Spirits, but against them it was extremely potent and ripped them apart at the most basic level.
Of course, these Glyphs were only as powerful as Harry could make them, and at present, that wasn't particularly strong. Fire and Purify also took a hell of a lot out of him, and Water took quite a chunk out of his reserves too. He also had to pause and concentrate long enough to sketch the glyph in the air in front of him.
Harry sighed once more, his Wraith-blade appearing in his right hand. His left hand traced the Force glyph at the base of blade, where it connected to the hilt, causing it to appear there, before it flickered and failed. He almost pouted at his failure, as he'd been trying to enhance his Wraith-blade with glyphs ever since he'd started learning them.
One of the reapers, a male one, had noticed Harry's actions, and laughed lightly. "An interesting concept, though I don't even know if such a thing is possible. Keep trying, young necromancer, perhaps you will eventually succeed."
Harry just hummed non-committally as he tried again, only glancing down when the glyph was finished to see if it stayed in place. He mostly kept his eyes focused on the gigantic Astral Spirit and the pit it resided in. He did glance around to see what other spirits he could see around, especially some of the larger ones.
Several 'streets' over, Harry could see a fight going on between several spirits, each around twice the height of a house, and there were a number of 'flying' spirits that also caught his eye. He winced slightly as one of the massive tentacles of the higher class spirit wrapped itself around one of the 'giant' spirits and dragged it into the pit.
Harry snorted. "Do you think the goblins set Gringotts up here because of that spirit?" He asked his reapers.
"Doubtful, but possible." One of the reapers answered him.
Another reaper made a noise of agreement. "They likely put their bank there because it's a place of power. A greater Astral Spirit leaks their 'presence' more than a lesser spirit does, and the more powerful a spirit is, the more 'reality' is twisted around them, even on the Material Plane."
The third decided to add something as well. "It's almost certain there's something like this at your school too, considering that it's a place of power as well, and given that the founders existed around the same time as... our captors, they may possibly have had the knowledge necessary to bind such a being."
Harry frowned. "I thought Hogwarts was where it was because it was situated over several intersecting leylines?" Harry queried.
"Where do you think leylines get their power?" One of the reapers asked him. "They are the paths of the Astral Plane that connect the lairs of the greater spirits, the ones that don't travel too much at least. Did you really believe that the different layers of Planes didn't affect one another despite lying atop each other?"
"I didn't think of that, no." Harry admitted. "I expected there to be places where the barriers between Planes was thin, and that those places may become a little... strange, but I didn't expect them to be tied as closely together as that. They almost seem to be different worlds really. Then again, the Wizarding and Muggle worlds are separate, and they exist right next to each other."
The reapers offered no comment to that, and the four of them simply stayed where they were, watching the flailing tentacles of the greater spirit less than a mile away from them.
xxxxx
Sirius Black was feeling better than he had done in more than a decade. He wasn't skin and bone any longer, and he was putting on a bit of much needed weight. His hair was regaining its lustre, his skin wasn't as pale and waxy, and his eyes were getting back some of their life. The new clothes he was wearing and a shave didn't hurt either.
What wasn't going so well was the whole mess that was happening right now. He was over the moon that James was alive, and with Remus still around too, it was almost like the Marauders had returned! He didn't count Peter, the little bastard, who he would gladly kill if he ever managed to escape Azkaban, where he had been consigned.
Then there was Harry, one of James' kids. Well, he was born one of James' kids, but as he'd been kicked out of the family, claiming a relation to a noble family was against the law, and Harry could be punished because of that. He seemed happy being a 'Ritter' though, so that was... okay, he supposed.
Sirius brushed those thoughts aside for the moment. He'd been called into the Ministry of Magic by Amelia Bones, apparently to assist in a case she had open, and she thought he might know something about it. Sirius couldn't see what he might know, he'd been in Azkaban for ages after all, and anything he might know would be out of date. Anything from before his imprisonment would also have been handled back then, or at least it should have been.
Flirting lightly with the pretty witch outside of Amelia's office door – earning him nothing more than a raised eyebrow in return – Sirius prepared himself to answer a few questions. Maybe she was going to ask him about James, or maybe Harry, those were the only potentially relevant topics he could think of.
Going inside, he paused at what he saw. Amelia herself was there, sat behind her desk, but she wasn't alone. Leaning against the back wall was an Unspeakable, which was a bit of a surprise as the Department of Mysteries didn't often work with other departments, but that wasn't the biggest surprise, perhaps the case, whatever it was, required some specialised assistance.
The most unexpected person present, that was perched on the corner of Amelia's desk and appeared to be chatting easily with the Unspeakable, was Harry. The boy looked to be in fairly good health, though there were dark circles underneath his eyes, suggesting he might not be getting as much sleep as he should be.
"Ah, Sirius, you're here, and actually on time too." Amelia said as soon as she saw who had stepped through the door.
"Did you expect me to be late, Amelia?" Sirius asked.
"I hoped you would be on time, but there was no guarantee of it." She replied bluntly. "Long term Dementor exposure has been known to make people absent-minded, and we already knew you were suffering memory problems."
"I suppose that's fair." Sirius grumbled under his breath, not exactly happy himself with what had happened, or the consequences of it either. "Care to tell me why I'm here? I can't think of much I'd be able to tell you that could help any sort of investigation, and like you said... I am having some trouble with remembering things."
"We're aware of that." Amelia confirmed. "However, you are the only one who might be able to give us an answer. We wish to ask you a few things about your brother, Regulus Arcturus Black."
"Reggie?" Sirius asked in surprise. "But... he's dead, he died before I was put away, what on earth do you need to ask about him?"
The Unspeakable straightened up then, addressing Sirius. "Before we continue, I'm afraid we must ask that you agree to keeping the details you learn here confidential. What we wish to ask you involves things that must be kept a secret, and if we have to break a few laws along the way, we will. I hope that conveys the weight of what this means."
Sirius' eyes went wide. An Unspeakable was talking about breaking the law, and in front of the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement no less! Amelia's eye twitched slightly, but she gave no other indication of a reaction to what the Unspeakable had said.
Sirius' eyes slid to Harry, who gave him a small smile in turn.
"If you're worrying about it, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Potters, and my involvement in this case is due to discovering... several things myself." The boy said with a shrug. "I can also tell you that we don't intend to harm or discomfort anyone either."
Sirius hesitated for only a moment. Whatever was going on here was big, if it was important enough for Amelia to break a few laws if necessary, and it was also something that required some sort of specialist help if the Unspeakable's presence was anything to go by, involving Harry in some way as well...
"Alright, I can... agree to that." Sirius consented.
"Harry." The Unspeakable glanced over to him. "Could you..."
"A binding spell?" Harry responded.
"A secrecy one, yes, we don't need this getting any further than it already is." The Unspeakable nodded.
"You know such things can be broken by someone powerful or skilled enough, right?" Harry still hesitated.
"It's better than nothing at least." The Unspeakable told him
Harry didn't verbally reply to that, instead pulling out his Tome of Shadows. Sirius didn't see the contents of the book as Harry flicked through it, but he did feel the boy's magic wash over him after he'd found what he was looking for and cast a spell over him.
Everything about the three of them seemed to sharpen as Harry cast his spell, and Sirius realised that this was when things were going to get serious.
"Tell me, Sirius, do you know what a horcrux is?" Amelia asked.
"No, it doesn't ring a bell at all." Sirius replied honestly.
Harry pulled something from behind his back, which turned out to be a locket.
"Do you recognise this, or have you seen something similar before?" He asked.
Sirius looked it over once more and shook his head. "I've never seen anything like that before in my life." He told them. "What does this have to do with Reggie?"
The three of them glanced at each other, before Harry chose to speak. "We have reason to believe that, before he died, Regulus turned against Voldemort. He attempted to collect certain objects, horcruxes, that prevented Voldemort from dying a true death. He died collecting the real version of this, but it wasn't with his corpse. We're trying to discover whether he actually did destroy it, if not then where it is, and whether he managed to learn anything about the others like it."
Sirius blinked. Yeah, this really was serious after all. How much worse could it get than an immortal Voldemort? Refocusing on the locket held in Harry's hand, he tried as hard as he could to remember something about it, but he couldn't think of anything. It wasn't like he'd been particularly close to his brother, especially after he'd ran away from hom- Ah!
"There might be something in the old Black home." Sirius suggested. "I ran away before I even finished school, but Reggie still lived there up to the point he died. I haven't been back there in... ages, but if he left some sort of clues behind, that's where they'd be."
"Would you mind opening up your home for us to search through?" The Unspeakable asked.
"Sure, I couldn't care less about that place, burn it to the ground if you want." Sirius wrinkled his nose. "Just be careful, that old house is full of some pretty dark and dangerous stuff, and I'm pretty sure there's a ton of illegal crap piled up in there as well."
"Does that mean I can raid the library?" Harry piped up, a pair of puppy-dog eyes making an appearance on his face, though judging by the twitching of his lips, he was doing this in jest.
"Don't care." Sirius told him. "I'd be happy to never see that place ever again, I've got nothing but bad memories of living there. Just be careful of the books in there, many of them will be cursed, and they'll be full of dark magic too."
Harry sat back, his expression closing off after a brief flash of surprise crossed his face.
Something then occurred to Sirius. "Wait, shouldn't you be in school right now?"
"Who says he isn't?" Unspeakable Hound asked, his tone making it clear he was amused by something. Judging from Amelia's huffed laugh and eye roll, it was some sort of inside joke or something. "So, when can we search through your old home?"
"Any time really, even right now if you wanted." Sirius answered. "I'm not hanging around once I've opened the place up though, just so you know."
"That's fine, searching the place shouldn't take too long." The Unspeakable waved him off, but Sirius wasn't so sure of that. Grimmauld Place was a big house, and there was plenty of room there. It would take a long time to search through, especially as they'd have to identify and sort everything in there.
Then again, maybe the Unspeakables had some sort of super secret spell that'd do it all in seconds or something.
"Alright then, might as well go now." Sirius shrugged.
xxxxx
It was fairly simple for Sirius to let them in the house. Being born a Black, and not being thrown out of the family – despite his mother's screeched insistence, his father had never actually done so for some reason – he pretty much walked up to the front door, had the wards recognise him for who he was, and then strolled in the front door.
He'd then keyed Harry and Hound in, Amelia having to remain behind as she had plenty of paperwork to be getting on with, though they'd keep her in the loop about anything they found. Sirius had then instructed Kreacher – a mad house elf – not to stop them doing what they needed to do, and then left.
Even being in the house for the few minutes that had required had soured his mood quite a bit.
Hound looked to Harry. "Well, shall we get started then?"
Harry made a vague sound of agreement, looking around at the filthy place. Looking through one door, he saw the kitchen, with an old and knackered table within. Just how this place had fallen into this state so quickly was a mystery to Harry, but he honestly didn't care enough to figure it out.
He tapped the table with his wand, causing it to fall into a large pile of wood chunks, none of them larger than his fist.
"A cutting curse, huh?" Hound mused at the sight. "No range to it, only works with touch?"
"Yeah." Harry confirmed. "Doesn't work too well against anything magical, so it's usually pretty useless for combat. It's actually a cooking spell, meant for vegetables and the like. Still, it works for things like this." He then waved his wand over the many pieces, transfiguring them into little people, each one no more than eight inches tall.
One more spell had them rushing out of the door and into the rest of the house.
"They'll organise everything into several piles." Harry told Hound. "One for ordinary items, one for those with light magical effects, and one for strong magical effects. They're not good enough to identify what those effects are though, that's up to us to discover."
"And if they come across something that might be a horcrux?" Hound asked.
"Then they'll come straight back to us and lead us to it." Harry responded.
"Interesting." Hound mused. "We'll give them a few minutes to sort things out before we poke our nose into those piles, but while we wait, why don't we chat about a few things?"
"What did you have in mind?" Harry wondered.
"Nothing too specific, just in general." Hound replied. "I've been keeping an eye on you, yet you keep slipping under the radar. I must admit, it's rather frustrating for me. How about we talk about those letters you send to Japan? You know, once upon a time, it was fairly common for Hogwarts students to have pen pals, usually in either Durmstrang or Beauxbatons though."
"I'm... enjoying them actually." Harry mused. "It's interesting, really, hearing about people on the other side of the planet like this. They're so different, different species, different attitudes, different priorities, but also the same, the same spectrum of hobbies, interests, emotions. Astral Spirits, on the other hand, while they can act a little human, are far more... distant than they are. I could not speak to my shade for a decade, and then suddenly pick things up exactly how I left them, they're concept of time is just so different to mine."
Hound snorted. "Of course you don't see time the same way. You're only thirteen, and those spirits of yours are how old? Centuries? Millennia? The older you get, the less time seems to matter. I've noticed that myself when dealing with some of the more long-lived races."
"What long-lived races have you had contact with?" Harry asked curiously.
"Oh, a few." Hound waved one hand idly. "Veela can live for centuries, goblins too. Dwarves can live a long time, and there are so many more races that once walked this earth. It's a shame a lot of them have died out, though did you know that we've found evidence that elves, like in muggle tales, once existed?"
"You mean 'high elves', 'wood elves', and whatever else you want to call them?" Harry queried. "Strange, in everything I've ever read, the only elves mentioned are 'house elves', and I can't seem to find much on their origins as a species either."
"Even I don't know what House Elves once were, even my department has only found fragments of text referring to a 'calamity' and 'binding the servant race'. It's a popular theory that house elves were once like brownies, from muggle fairy-tales, but something happened and they needed help. It's unclear whether binding themselves to humans was a price of that or if it was part of the process that saved them." Hound informed him. "Anyway, these 'other' elves, it is said, 'fled this world in the face of a terrible evil', though no records currently exist about where they went."
Harry regarded Hound curiously. "Was that an indirect request for me to see if any Astral Spirits know what happened to them, or were around at that time?"
"Not really." Hound shrugged. "While it would be interesting to find out about them, it's not really relevant to modern magicals, and it's not like we could even use whatever magic they used either, not without grafting another magical system into our own bodies."
"Graft?" Harry couldn't help but ask. "Is it really possible to do something like that with an entire magical network?"
"It's possible, not that anyone outside my department would really know that." Hound admitted. "However, you've got to prepare the body as well. If you grafted a magical system into a muggle, you'd have to go through several rituals to prepare their bodies for it, otherwise the result would be... less than pleasant, to say the least."
"I'm curious, could I get a look at that research?" Harry wondered.
"I'm willing to trade information." Hound replied. "If you can find a few things we don't have much on, I can make a few copies of some of the more obscure files we have. There's even a number of old projects that were either dropped or simply never finished, you can look through them too if you want."
The way Harry's eyes glittered then let Hound know he had the boy hooked. His department would gain some new info without having to put in any effort, and all he had to do was share some of the non-confidential files that no one really bothered with any longer.
He was a little disappointed that his department in recent decades had switched focus to simply spell creation and artefact deconstruction. In Hound's opinion, those were things better left to Arithmancers and Tomb Robbers, not Unspeakables who, he believed, should push every boundary of magic that existed.
Harry looked like he was about to say something, possibly about some of the things he may know that he'd be willing to trade, but their conversation was interrupted by one of the little wooden people tugging on his trousers. Hound had to laugh at the sight, despite the implications, it really was quite bizarre.
The little wooden figure led them up the stairs and into one of the rooms.
It pointed at a partially emptied cabinet, or rather it pointed at something inside the cupboard, a locket. Harry's face turned grim at that, as the two of them could clearly see that the locket was undamaged, meaning Regulus hadn't been able to destroy it before being dragged to a watery death by inferi.
"How the hell did this thing even get here?" Hound wondered. "Regulus died in that cave, and there were wards up to stop portkeys."
"I have no idea." Harry shook his head. "Let's just tear the memories out of this thing and take it out of here, unless you want to have a look at all of the artefacts piled up around this place?"
"I might have a peek about." Hound mused. "I honestly don't have much work to do, and while artefacts aren't my speciality, I do find them interesting."
"And I'll raid the library." Harry grinned. "Would you mind starting there and telling me what's cursed with what and how to get rid of it?"
"Sure." Hound agreed.
xxxxx
Once they were in the library - which probably only contained around five thousand or so books, a lot for a home, but nothing compared to a school or public library – Harry created a dozen magic clones. If he only kept them around a for a short while, he could manage having more of them out without suffering from migraines and memory problems.
Hound wandered around for a little while, tagging the books with curses on them. Harry made a mental note to only let his copies touch them until the curses were removed, it wasn't like the curses could transfer through his clones to him, they'd tested that out just in case.
Harry himself took one of the books free of curses and sat down. He rapidly flicked through it, his Occlumency being optimised for the rapid processing of information, especially in large volumes, before copying the memories and storing them in his Tome of Shadows. Going like that, he could get through a book roughly every ten to fifteen minutes, and with his clones matching him, that added up to between forty-eight and seventy-two books an hour.
It was monotonous, and frankly quite boring, but it got things done. If he found anything particularly interesting, he would read it properly later. His clones were also taking care of the cursed books first, starting with the worst of them, so there was less risk when he'd end up transporting them with him.
While Harry settled in to read – and Hound wished he had a camera at hand to take a picture of thirteen copies of Harry all quietly reading together – the Unspeakable decided to wander the rest of the house and check out the enchanted and cursed artefacts lying around.
There was some fairly simply stuff, such as self-repairing crockery, but then there was also things that made no sense to Hound. Why would a family, no matter how light or dark, leave a snuffbox full of powdered poison lying around, especially when it tried to bite anyone that came near it?
He also found a jar full of human eyes, though they had strange patterns where the iris and pupil was supposed to be, and there were multiple cursed torture devices in the basement. In fact, three of Harry's little wooden people actually sacrificed themselves to save Hound from some sort of homicidal iron maiden and guillotine combination thing.
He considered learning a golem spell or two himself at that point, an extra pair of hands was always appreciated, and a magical construct that could protect him from things like that was never a bad thing. From then on, he had half a dozen of Harry's little wooden people follow him around the house.
Thankfully, nothing else tried to kill him as enthusiastically as that torture device did.
When he did return to the library, several hours after he left, he found Harry and his clones just like he'd left them. The only difference was the stack of already read books in one corner. Most of those books had the tag Hound had used to denote curses, and there was noticeablely less cursed books still on the shelves.
Looking for the only 'Harry' without a cursed book in his hands, Hound waited for him to finish flicking through it and add the memories to his tome, before tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention. Harry, obviously having been rather out of it, jumped a little in surprise, before looking up at Hound.
His eyes then noticed the small pile of objects floating behind him. "Huh, less than I expected." Harry muttered.
Hound glanced back at the items in question. "I didn't even expect this much, but there are some strange things in there all the same. I came across a jar of strange eyes in one cupboard that I'm curious about, any ideas what that might be about?"
Harry went to shake his head, but before he could speak, one of the clones looked up and interrupted them.
"I believe I came across a tome regarding permanently imbuing specific magical effects into ocular organs." It said. "However, the survival rate was roughly one in ten. To counter this, eyes were preserved and transplanted from one person to another."
"Curious." Hound murmured. "Compile everything you can find on those eyes, as well as your own theories on why the survival rate was one in ten, and I'll trade you the files on grafting foreign magical systems and one other subject of your choice."
"Agreed." Harry immediately accepted the offer. "I choose sapient magical species which no longer exist, including the elves you mentioned earlier."
"Done." Hound offered his hand, which Harry shook.
Hound chuckled. "I think that this is the start of a wonderful arrangement."
"Perhaps it is." Harry agreed.
xxxxx
Days and weeks began to blend together for Rose Potter. It wasn't that everything she was learning was especially dull or anything, it just seemed to be the same thing over and over again. The class could only go as fast as the slowest member after all, and they'd spend a week of lessons on one spell or set of magical theories.
Asking Harry, she'd found that the first 'real' bit of magic they'd cast in charms had been on Halloween. Everything before that had been theory and basic magic exercises, spells like 'lumos', and similar basic stuff. She'd done as Harry apparently did, and asked for additional stuff to work through when she was finished with class work, but she found that so boring.
Rose really wasn't the sort of girl that could simply read a book for fun. Oh, she did read fiction occasionally, but that was once in a while, and not a particularly regular hobby. Instead, while she was at Hogwarts, she bounced between a few of their clubs; gobstones, chess, board games, even Professor Flitwick's puzzle challenges.
Once she got bored of all them, however, she started to bug Harry for something to do. He accepted it with good grace, and even dug a few things out for her to mess about with, though she wasn't allowed to touch everything. There was something that looked to be a large, broad surfboard without the fins which Harry didn't let her play with for example, along with a few other things she couldn't identify.
Hogwarts was turning out to be not too bad in her opinion. She didn't really have many friends, she found most of them irritating or too boring, but there were some fun people there. Luna Lovegood, a girl in the year above her, was a bit of an oddball. She wasn't the same sort of 'mad' that Rose herself was, but she okay in relatively small doses. She was also something of a friend to Harry, or at least the two knew each other and were somewhat friendly.
Fred and George Weasley were a lot of fun too, and they seemed quite happy to include her in their schemes. Their friend Lee Jordan was also a pretty cool guy, though he only pitched in ideas occasionally and wasn't as involved with the pranks themselves. He more than made up for it with his avid love of Quidditch, and journalism as well it turned out.
As it so happened, Rose was currently trying to track Harry down. She knew he used to stay in Ravenclaw tower, but ever since her father had been an idiot and broken in there, no one knew where he and his familiars now stayed. They turned up for breakfast, did what they did during the day, and disappeared in the evening.
Rose turned a corner and caught sight of a bushy head of brown hair.
"Hey, Granger, have you seen Harry anywhere?" She called out to the Gryffindor girl.
"What?" Hermione turned around. "N-no, I haven't."
Rose paused to take a second look at Granger. Her hair was even messier than normal, purple shadows were visible underneath her eyes, and her uniform, while clean, was a bit ruffled looking. All in all, it was clear that she wasn't in top form, though she seemed more muscled than she used to be. Of course, the heavy bag of books she lugged around might be responsible for that.
"Have you been having sex?" Rose asks bluntly.
"What?!" Hermione squeaks. "What would make you think that?"
"Well, you look a bit dishevelled and out of it, and you're always rushing about, like you're disappearing off somewhere. You're really evasive if anyone asks about where you go, and you look a bit tired too." Rose told her. "So, have you been getting it on with someone?"
"No, I haven't!" Hermione's cheeks flame red. "How could you think that, I'm only fourteen!"
Rose shrugs. "Harry's only thirteen, and It's pretty obvious that Isis at least is trying to get into his pants. Besides, witches and wizards mature faster than muggles do, so there's things like hormones and stuff, isn't there? I know my mum said something about being too young to be a grandmother to Brian a while back, but I wasn't paying her too much attention at the time."
Hermione blinked, then again, and then a third time. She then palmed her face, grumbling something under her breath. She peeked out between her fingers at Rose, and a twitch started to develop under her right eye. She sighed, composed herself, and spoke with the voice of someone who was attempting to keep themselves calm and in control.
"I do not know where Harry is, nor do I know what he, or anyone he may or may not be involved with, might be doing, nor do I know what they wish to do together. However, I can probably help you find him, if that's what you want. I know a few places he likes to go to get away from other people from time to time." Hermione offered.
"Thanks!" Rose chirped.
"Just, one thing..." Hermione says. "Please don't imply that I'm sleeping around, ever again. Please."
"Okay." Rose shrugs, before following after Hermione as she leads her to one of the places Harry goes to relax.
xxxxx
The first place that Hermione looked for Harry was down by the lake and forest, out on the grounds and just out of sight of the castle. The second place she tried was the room where that strange 'homework' club was, and while there were a few people in there, none of them had seen Harry.
Hermione then went around a few of the abandoned classrooms that she knew Harry sometimes used, and it was in the fourth one she looked in that she got quite the shock. When she opened the door, she yelped and froze in place, as all of the walls, the ceiling, and the floor were absolutely crawling with various types of insects.
They ranged from the simply flies, house, green, and other, to dragonflies, to butterflies, and wasps, bees, and hornets, to more obscure insects, including scarabs and other foreign bugs. Amongst them, there were spiders, tarantulas, scorpions, small birds, and even a cat.
In the middle of the room, with several vials of some sort in his hand, stood Harry.
Hearing the door open, Harry looks over his shoulder to see who had come in, or at least who was now stood in the doorway with an expression of shock on her face. Seeing Hermione, he recalled his collection of zombies, black clouds flowing into the internally expanded pockets on the inside of his sleeves. Space seemed to warp around his wrists, allowing things like the cat to jump into an opening that really should have been far too small for it to fit.
Slipping the vials of poison – primarily paralytics - he'd been examining into a pocket, he raised one eyebrow at Hermione.
"Yes? Was there something you wanted?" He asked.
"Wha- Wha- What was that?" Hermione asked, looking around the room for any remainder of the mass of creepy crawlies and other assorted animals, before looking at Harry's sleeves, which didn't even show the slightest bulge. "Never mind, I don't think I even want to know. Here's your sister, she was looking for you."
Hermione pushed Rose into the room, before turning around and leaving. Harry noted that she looked rather stressed, and wondered if it had anything to do with her rather packed schedule, as well as the artefact Loki had found her using. He couldn't name it, but from observing Hermione, he'd found that it was something that allowed one to travel through time in hour long increments.
Harry frowned at that. Why did a schoolgirl, one who was only just fourteen, have something like that? Given that he'd found no reference to such an object in any of the books he'd read, he could only conclude that it was a relatively new creation. Still, even searching for some sort of mention of 'time travel' in more modern books had turned up nothing, and that worried Harry a little. Maybe he should ask Hound if the Department of Mysteries knew about such things.
"Harry!" Rose chirped, almost bouncing into the room. "Have you got anything new for me to play with? I'm feeling bored again."
Harry sighed, rolling his eyes as he did so. "I don't have anything in my pocket, but... I have a few things that might interest you. Do you have much experience with muggle games? I did buy several last time I was out and about, I'm sure you could find a few people to play with."
"That sounds fun, will you play it with me?" Rose asked.
Harry thought about it for a moment. Sure, he had a lot of things he was doing right now, but things were going relatively well, weren't they? Well, reading and memorising things was going well, his Pleiades golems were now finished as well, and a number of his projects could be put on hold.
He blew a lock of hair out of his face. "Yeah, I'll play. Tell you what, I'll even see if Isis, Loki, and Bast are interested. That sound good to you?"
"Awesome!" Rose cheered.
"Okay then. We'll use the room three doors down from the main staircase on the fourth floor, you know the one? The chess club sometimes uses it, but I think it'll be fairly empty right now. Let me just go and see if my familiars are interested and fetch the games, hm?" Harry asked.
"See you there then." Rose agreed, before charging at full speed out of the room.
"So energetic." Harry murmured to himself, before pulling out the vials of poison he was looking at earlier, frowning. "I'd better put these away somewhere safe as well, I'll see whether I can use them with my zombie bugs later."
With that, Harry cast a Dimensional Transfer spell to return him to his home in Japan, idly telepathically asking his familiars if they felt up to playing a board game with him and Rose.
Suffice to say, they agreed.